The End of It
by Tridee
Summary: Once again, they fight: Old friends and old foes on a new battlefield. Regardless of their surroundings, they have been here before, but this time things are not quite as they seem.


Here they are again, hemmed in by ghostly trees and clawing branches, caught up in a dream turned real. If not for the helmet, he would've snarled. There is a fire of betrayal in his chest, stoked by his losses, and he does not deny it, lifting a hand and hurling his enemy to crash against the edge of their arena.

Though old, and weak, his opponent is still adept, and the fool has broken his fall and regained his footing by the time Vader's lightsaber is slashing down at his head, evading the blade with more fluidity than Vader had expected.

No matter, the counter-attack is easily parried, and as they exchange blows, the hiss and glow of their blades filling the narrow confines with light and noise, Vader feels his superior strength giving him the upper hand.

"You have become weak, old man."

His opponent narrows his eyes, then launches into a flurry of attacks, moving with a speed that taxes Vader's reactions for a moment, if only due to his surprise. The other man wasn't supposed to let himself be goaded. Nor, unless he had been faking when they last fought, was he that fast.

Allowing his fury to drive him, he blocks and redirects every blow, launches furious attacks and pushes his opponent; his enemy, his only true enemy left, and his death will be all the sweeter for it, back towards the trees.

Then the man ducks suddenly where before he had parried, spins behind him and cuts precisely at Vader's back, where he barely manages to parry, the pose awkward and his strength vastly limited, turning as fast as he can and cursing his lack of flexibility in the suit.

"What are you doing?" His attacker's yell is damnably familiar.

The question invokes another swell of anger, and he presses the attack again, before settling to observe the old man's fighting style. Something about it seems- Different. He will not be caught out so easily.

"Why are you _doing_ this?" Why? What right does this man have to ask him _why_.

He begins to respond, to snarl "You seem confused.", to show his superiority, but finds himself struggling to block a series of attacks that leave him retreating rapidly across the clearing, strangely aware that his enemy is driven as much by his own anger as the force.

Now his fighting style is clear; the mastered Soresu of the Clone Wars, augmented for better attack, a style he knows as well as his own. If the old man would stay still for a moment, then he could tell whether the flashes of ginger he kept seeing were his own nostalgia or some strange trick of the force.

In the space between one clash of blades and the next, he becomes aware that something seems off, that this _cannot be_. His old master seems to reach the same conclusion, and disengages, putting a few steps of space between them.

Vader fights the sudden urge to advance across them, just because it's what his enemy doesn't want him to do; the kind of impulse that had caused his foolishness in his youth. Feeling it now is… Disturbing.

"This is absurd. You returned to the light!" The omitted 'Didn't you?' rings loudly across the clearing.

Vader turns, abruptly, shutting his enemy out of his vision to focus on himself.

"This feels like a dream." The words slip out despite himself, and he curses his strange lack of control.

It is unsettling how similar he sounds to his younger self. For a moment, it feels like he can't hear his respirator- But when he listens it is there, as ever, another consequence of the other man's betrayal.

It is uncannily silent. In the emptiness, where before lay rage and battle, memory returns. His son's face. _"Tell your sister… You were right."_ He feels his last breath over again, the catch of it in his throat. He turns back to face the old man, who still stands silently, like a ghost.

"How am I still alive?" It is more of a demand than a question. He lost his patience for questions long ago.

"I am not entirely certain that we are." His old master seemed to have reached new levels of obtuseness in his advanced age.

Vader ignores him as he begins to move around, choosing instead to examine his connection to the force.

The old man speaks again: "This planet seems strange, somehow. It's as though the force is clouded here, in some way that I can't grasp."

Somehow, some way: This is the wisdom of the Jedi Order. Out loud, he simply scoffed.

"What wisdom is it that you have to offer? The 'wisdom' of the Sith?"

Vader suppresses the urge to turn away again, the urge to _run_ , as though he was still too weak to face himself. Too weak to face his fears. He is stronger than that now! That is the wisdom of the Sith! The Sith use their fear, instead of suppressing it; fearing it in some twisted loop of repression. He lets his anger build, feeling the power it offers him, then remembers his son.

Having good in him didn't make him a good man. It definitely didn't make him a Jedi. _"I am a Jedi like my father before me!"_ He wasn't… He had killed so many, and he didn't regret it. It had been necessary! They had deserved to die. The image of his son's eyes, utterly certain, haunts him. In some way he feels like he has to try; to honour that faith which he'd so very nearly betrayed. He feels like, perhaps, he could- He will try.

Obi-Wan had remained silent while he thought, and for a fleeting second he feels a pathetic gratitude, a long forgotten appreciation of being given space by his closest friend. He inhales.

"The wisdom of a man." No more than that.

The older man merely tilts his head in acknowledgement, causing a flash of frustration to run under his skin. He suppresses it with all of his cold, iron will. He is far too old to seek commendation from a man who means nothing to him anymore.

Once again, he attempts to feel the force around him, this time trying to leave aside his inveterate anger; he opens his mind to the force in a way that he hasn't done for years. It's almost painful to push past some of the darkness surrounding him, and almost- Good. It's a burning pain, like the feeling in your muscles after a difficult sparring match.

Clouded, he reluctantly admits to himself, is a good descriptor. The force is heavy and indistinct, full of something that he can't quite grasp, neither light, nor dark. He feels something profound weighing down on him. In the liminal murkiness, he can't fail to notice the single point of battered light, and even as he reaches out to it, he knows what it is.

He recoils from the knowledge even as he is drawn by his own fascination to investigate. The two of them have not shared a bond, not even one as narrow and frayed as this, for more years than he cares to count.

He can feel Obi-Wan reaching out along the thread of light connecting them, senses his bitter wistfulness, underlain with a web of emotions that he can't follow. It aggravates him that he can't read this man, for all their years of friendship and enmity.

"What are you doing, you old fool?"

There's a beat of silence before he gets his reply, the other man's tone weary, bitter, and yet somehow transcending those emotions with something he can't quite dare to call hope, or maybe trust in the light.

"You were my friend, once." There's something musing in the way he says it.

It feels sour to be reminded of the past, and there's an intense, despairing bitterness in his belly that refuses to let go. He contains himself, keeps himself to the cold black armour he's clad his soul in since he lost his entire world.

"We are not who we once were."

"Are we not?"

Obi-Wan tries to make eye contact, but Vader avoids it, turning slightly to the side, trying not to think about the way that, just for a second, like a trick of the light, his old friend had looked young again.

The question is unsettling; both because it implies that through all that they have done they have remained the same, and because of the way that their chronologies of self seem to be upset in this strange space after death. He feels a chill pass through him, and as it always does, it leads him straight to anger. They are **not** who they once were. They will never be that way again.

"You betrayed me!" He is almost bellowing, and he feels like it should _break_ the silence, as he is broken, but the forest absorbs it without a trace.

"Only – in – your – mind!" The response is vehement.

Wrapping himself in icy menace, he continues, level and dark: "You were going to kill me."

"You'd already-"

His control falters, and he finds himself cutting across the old man. "Where was the vaunted honour of the Jedi then, when you were sent as an assassin!"

"-killed so many! Your own wife! It-"

"Don't talk about her! I'd never have- I'd never have hurt her if you hadn't turned her against me! It's your fault she's dead!"

Even as the heat of rage rushes through him, and he speaks as genuinely as he ever has, some part of him has come to realise over the long, cold years that Padmé would never have supported the Empire (though sometimes he dreamed that her love for him would overcome her doubts – but then, she was too good; too good to betray her principles, too good to live in this world, far too good for a man like him).

("-doesn't matter, I couldn't do it anyway." His tone is cool, and old, and bitter.)

"My fault? Oh no, that was all your doing, Vader! It was your anger, your unreasoning rage that killed P-"

He doesn't wait for him to get past the first two words.

"It's always my fault! The Jedi never took responsibility for their actions; for what they did!" It's as though the air is sucked from his lungs into the void, and he bellows: " **Don't say her name!** "

Obi-Wan looks at him, steadily. "She was a good woman, and brave. She deserves to be remembered. She deserves to be _named_."

" _I'm a person, and my name is Anakin!"_ He feels some of his anger drain out of him, leaving the emptiness her presence used to fill. He remembers her; her eyes, her voice, her spirit. He feels almost like a Padawan again, being reprimanded for some foolish mistake, and he doesn't know how to feel about it – how to feel about any of it. He feels resentment; anger, he wants to tell Obi-Wan that he doesn't deserve to say her name, that no-one deserves to say her name – but he feels tired, suddenly. Obi-Wan is right. Padmé deserves to have her name remembered. It aches, still, that she is gone. He wonders if his children know about her; if they know about the past.

The tone of mild reprimand brings back memories of when he was young, when they were friends, as far as they ever were. He is filled with bitter nostalgia; regret and a sense of rightful action meshing nauseatingly in his mind.

He looks up at Obi-Wan.

"What do you want?"

The old- only, he doesn't look so old, anymore, like somehow time has been turned back- the man across the clearing, both intensely familiar and an utter stranger, raises an eyebrow (and falls completely into familiarity; he knows this man).

"I don't know why you'd assume that I want anything."

Vader doesn't respond. Tension hangs in the air between them, the inevitable result of the issues that have inexorably risen between them since Anakin was nine. The feeling of the inescapable nature of their conflict is combatted by a brave wistfulness – how strong must their friendship have been, to have withstood so much, for so long? It leaves a bad taste in his mouth, and a curling in his stomach.

Obi-Wan opens his mouth to speak, pauses minutely, then continues: "I suppose we ought to find a way off this planet."

Vader accepts it as what it is; a peace offering and a change of subject. An appeal to the past, when they really did work together to get out of impossible situations, and knew that, no matter what, together they would always succeed. It's sickening, it's crushing to think of, and he scorns his foolish youth.

Yet here they are again, at the end of all things.

"Perhaps you are not _entirely_ addled."

"Indeed," comes the soft reply.


End file.
